Old Friends, New Friends

First let me say thank you. When the phone could ring in the canyons, it did, big chunk of the way to town. I couldn't answer it driving with one hand. I'm very surprised so many people read the blog with breakfast or lunch. Especially after six weeks of just getting stupid with the hawks. I'm still stupid with them, I just don't bore you with it anymore. So thank you to so many friends who checked on me today. The medical people introduced me to my two new friends, this arm sling and Ibuprofen. Both of whom I'm going to be spending considerable time with over the next month plus. They suggested Vicodan but I'd watched too many House episodes to go down that road. It took the whole day for them to sort it out, but I have some rotator cuff damage. They don't know how much yet. They sent the x-rays to Salt Lake to some specialist. If the pain hasn't passed and I don't have some arm movement in the next two to four weeks, then surgery is probably on the table. Today, was the first day over 40 degrees in two months and I spent most of it indoors between the doctor's office and the hospital. In short, I made a lot of mistakes yesterday. I didn't take water knowing I could just take a Desert Bugle and use it as a straw to suck water out of the various places I find it out there but that wouldn't have done me any good if I'd have gone immobile at a location. Second, I didn't take a walkie talkie because there's nobody out here this time of year and there wouldn't have been anybody to call. Third, I seem to think that because big horn can do something, I can too. Really, can I jump two and one half times my height from a standing start? Fourth, you don't go down anything that you can't see the outcome to and that you can't get back up. Fifth, Moenkopi just sucks as a climbing surface. In fairness to me, I've passed plenty of times on following big horn trails, several just back in December. This one though I had been down before and while it was challenging, I'd made it. However, things change. Even when I was wandering around in the canyons medium size rocks were falling down around me and there were a couple of gigantic rock slides on the Anti-Cline. The snow and ice is melting and the changing surfaces are causing soil to fail. I went down a trail I'd done before. When I dropped off that ledge in the corner I saw a pile of dirt built up where the big horn had jumped and knew it was going to cushion my feet. There wasn't any snow right there but I probably made that jump at around 2pm and the landing area was still in the shadows so it makes sense (now) that sun hadn't see that area since Oct or Nov and it would be frozen. I landed, slipped, fell on my right shoulder. Didn't get a hand out. It hurt, but it wasn't debilitating at the time. I got down another ledge but when I came to the bottom one, it was just completely gone. At some point in the last year or two since I'd last done this big horn trail the soil had failed. It was twenty feet down and I could tell the ground was frozen where I'd land. My shoulder hurt enough I knew I couldn't pull myself back up anywhere so down was all there was. Waiting for help wouldn't have been this week. I crawled down thru the snow and ice and got some footing on a boulder. Then I slipped down between a crack onto another boulder but I knew it was dicey and if I made a mistake it could be way worse than the last one. I had to use my back, my shoulders, and my hands while lowering myself down the crack and my arm gave out. I fell to the bottom boulder, then to the ground, and landed on the same shoulder again. That could have resulted in a dirt nap if I'd have fallen a little to either side. In any case, it is what it is. I'm 60 years old. I'm not going to change. I suspect when I'm 50% healed I'll be back out exploring. Still, if you're gonna go, and at some point we all are, this is where I want to go. I'm not sure what happens now. I got one arm for an unknown period of time. I got to make some changes before I have an unhappy ending. I'll be trying to figure it out. Until then I guess it's back to chasing the Sharp-shinneds. Maybe. I put plenty of paragraph breaks in here and I don't know why they aren't showing up.